


What We Choose to Be

by JustCallMeEmrys



Series: Two Sides [1]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: #TheDevilsBack, Chloe KNOWS, I am not a medical professional, I know like 2 things about ornithology and one of those things is the definition of ornithology, Inaccurate application of the law because this is a fanfic and I Don't Feel Like It, Let Lucifer say "Fuck" 2K18, Not really an AU but like.....vaguely AU-adjacent, Post-S3 Finale, Reveal, Supernatural Elements, The obligatory “what happens next” fic, Whump, Wings, can this count as whump???? Probably, don't tell my professors, mythology elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 10:49:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14932823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustCallMeEmrys/pseuds/JustCallMeEmrys
Summary: Chloe has had a long day, and it just keeps getting longer.





	1. Weird Biblical Bullshit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited on 2/7/2019 for minor continuity issues.

Lucifer's voice in the silent loft didn't hold a candle to the roaring in her ears. 

A jet taking off right next to her head would have been quieter. It was deafening, that awful noise, and it just kept getting louder every time her brain tried to process what was in front of her. 

It couldn't be possible, this red and black _thing,_ the charred and scarred flesh that stretched across the bones of the animated corpse. It should have been impossible, and yet...

And yet.

There it was.

Right in front of her.

Staring at her with eyes that were oh so familiar, even if they glowed and flickered with an internal flame; speaking to her with a voice that was oh so familiar, even if it seemed to crackle just a bit as it passed through the burned throat; reaching out to her with the tentative body language of someone out of their emotional depth that was oh so familiar, even if that hand--the whole body--was one plucked straight from a nightmare. 

Reaching, that was, up until those smoldering eyes caught a glimpse of the discoloured hand, at which point the entire creature froze, its eyes widening in an expression of horror that Chloe had only ever seen a handful of times on a face that she was coming to realize was no more familiar than this one, although much more human.

It was only then that Chloe's brain rebooted, having successfully installed a handy-dandy new software patch that she was sure was titled "You _just_ said you knew about this, so get over it"; a wordy name, true, but it wasn't actually incorrect. Sure, she hadn't expected to find Mr. Tall, Dark, and Crispy waiting for her in the loft--anybody that could have predicted _that_ probably had more problems than she did--but in the end, it didn't really matter, because she had meant what she had said to Dan and Ella over the phone: the truth that stood before her was one that she had known for a long, _long_ time.

Sometime during her brain's reboot process, the creature had vanished, replaced by the face and man that Chloe had become so fond of. His dark eyes gazed upon her with that same look of horror that had been focused on the blackened hand moments before, as if she too had transformed into a monster. His jaw worked up and down, but no words came out. He took a step back, towards the door, his shoulders raised in that way Chloe _knew_ meant that he was about to run.

"Don't you dare," she snarled, which hadn't been the tone she was going for _at all._ She hadn't thought she was that angry; the day, it seemed, was full of surprises. "Don't move."

Lucifer raised his hands, palms towards her and fingers splayed in surrender. Beyond that, he didn't so much as twitch, although Chloe didn't miss the distraught look that flashed across his face.

Whatever. _Like hell_ she was going to let him run away again.

"Like hell". Was she even allowed to say that anymore, now that she knew that figure of speech was no longer quite so figurative?

From outside came the muffled wail of sirens, signaling the arrival of the backup Chloe had requested Dan send to them as she had raced her way back to the loft. Her eyes darted around the room, tallying up every single little thing that she had _no idea_ how to explain; it was most of it. It would take some artful lying and half-truths, since she couldn't just wave her hand and dismiss it as _weird biblical bullshit_ , because that was how people got committed. Her gaze rested for just a moment on Pierce--shit, _CAIN_ \--stretched out on the floor and very much dead, if the knife hooked under his sternum and his glassy gaze were anything to go by. And then she moved on to the other bodies in the room, counting the ones that were still breathing, and the ones that definitely weren't.

Chloe pretended like she didn't notice Lucifer's flinch when she burst into movement again, darting to the nearest unconscious gunman to roll him onto his stomach and cuff his hands behind his back. She circled the room, using up her spare handcuffs and two of her zip cuffs before she was satisfied that none of the gunmen would be getting back up to cause any more problems. The entire process--including checking the two bloodied bodies and confirming them dead and gone--took less than five minutes, and that was generally double the time Chloe had ever seen Lucifer sit still. But he still hadn't moved, aside from minutely twisting his head so he could keep an eye on her. He hadn't even dropped his hands, which was a fact that pulled Chloe's mouth down into a frown. 

The stillness, the silence, the obedience to her orders, the odd _worry_  still plain as day on his face was so _un-Lucifer_ that it made her gut twist in a knot. She opened her mouth to tell him that it was okay--that she wasn't as mad as she had sounded, not really--but the approaching pounding of feet made her snap her jaw shut again.

Instead, she said, "Stay out of the way, and let me do the talking. And don't you dare try to leave. We need to talk after we're done here." 

Lucifer hesitated, but finally he nodded and slowly lowered his arms back to his sides, just in time for what had to be half of the LA SWAT team to swarm into the loft.

After that, Chloe became so swept up in the unfurling chaos, she almost forgot Lucifer was even there at all. He did as he was told, stepping to the side and keeping his mouth shut as SWAT cleared the rest of the loft, and then as the forensics unit moved in to set up shop. Hell, _everyone_ seemed to just ignore Lucifer's presence, their eyes sliding right past him; after Chloe was finished giving her statement--Dan would be impressed with her improv skills--they didn't even approach Lucifer to ask for his own. Only Ella, who arrived an hour after the rest of the forensics team, acknowledged that Lucifer was there at all by trying to rush up to him and give him a back-breaking hug, which he dodged with a tight-lipped smile and nothing else.

"This place is a _wreck,"_ Ella said, whistling as she took in the number of bullet holes that made Swiss cheese out of just about every wall, and the line of shattered marble extending from the remains of what looked to have been decorative posts at the bottom of the staircase; Chloe didn't even want to try to imagine how _that_ damage had happened. Her eyes snapped to the small hole in Chloe's shirt, just an inch and a half lower than the point where her bulletproof vest would have been useless. "Oh my god, are you okay?"

Chloe clamped her lips around a hysterical giggle, because she finally understood why Lucifer always reacted the way he did when anybody said "God" around him; God was a _real person_ \--deity?--so to Lucifer it probably sounded like people were just saying  "Oh my John" or whatever _all the time._ If people were walking around, invoking _her_ father’s name, she would probably react the same way, too. 

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said, pulling down the neckline of her shirt to show off the little bit of mushroomed metal lodged in her vest. "I'm not looking forward to the bruise, but it's better than...you know."

"I'm just glad you're okay," Ella said, swiping the back of her hand across her wet eyes. "You sounded kinda awful on the phone, and you hung up really quickly. Dan just about panicked."

Chloe offered a tight smile. "Sorry, there was a lot going on." There still _was._ "Where _is_ Dan, anyway?"

"I left him outside. We had to bring our _new friend_ from the penthouse. I think Dan's planning on dumping him off on SWAT or something." Ella's eyes drifted down to Pierce's body; aside from a few evidence markers placed around him, he appeared to be untouched. _"Damn._ I knew, coming in here, that this is probably how it ended, but... Did you...?" Ella waved her hand at the karambit still lodged in the corpse's chest. 

"No. That was Lucifer." After a brief pause, Chloe hurried to say, "It was self defense." Even though, technically, it _wasn't._ Bending the definition of the law--if only her father could see her now. 

"Well, _duh,"_ Ella said without an ounce of doubt or hesitation. "Lucifer's a good guy. If Pierce is...if _this is what happened,_ then it was the only option. And going by the state of this place, I'd say there weren't many to begin with." 

There really hadn't been. When they had been surrounded by all those guns, and the men that were eager to use them, Chloe had thought that there _were_ no happy options, no ways to escape alive. She had been convinced that she and Lucifer were going to be gunned down. Either they were going to go down fighting, or go down silently. She hadn't known about the secret third option that involved more celestial crap than she had been willing to accept at that moment.

“I’ll still have to fingerprint him, though,” Ella said, breaking off to mutter as she tried to pull the knife from its new sheath. It didn’t budge. “Question: How has Lucifer been able to consult with us _without_ his fingerprints being on file already? Seems like an oversight by the old LT to me.” She frowned. “ _Old_ old LT. And Pierce too, actually. Weird.”

Chloe hummed in agreement, although she wasn’t really paying much attention, her gaze instead focusing on the dozens of red-streaked white feathers that littered the loft. With her eyes now opened to the divine, she had a pretty good guess where they came from. That was, she assumed, no mystery to her. What _was_ a mystery was why none of the other cops or forensic staff seemed to be giving two shits about any of them. Just like with Lucifer himself, their eyes glided right past them. Even Ella, who had noticed Lucifer without a problem, was kneeling on a few stray feathers without so much as a blink.

Everything was suddenly _so weird._

"Hey, Earth to Decker." Chloe blinked, then jerked backwards when she finally registered the gloved hand that waved back and forth in front of her face. "Are you sure you're okay?" Ella asked. She held her arms out. "Do you need a hug? What am I saying, of course you do. Stressful day. Bring it in, sister!"

Chloe held up a hand to keep from being swept into Ella's arms. "I'm fine, really." Just dancing around the edge of about four different crises. "Maybe a little tired."

"Of course you are! What am I _doing,_ keeping you here chatting?" Ella flapped her hand at her. "Go on, get out of here. I've got this. I think one of the interns was bringing coffee. Go grab one of those." She glanced at something beyond Chloe's shoulder, a worried expression creasing her brow. "And maybe get a shock blanket for Lucifer. He doesn't look too good."

Chloe turned towards Lucifer, and felt a pang of guilt ricochet around her chest. She hadn't looked at him too closely since...well, since she had _seen him_ and her world view had been punted into the wall. But now that she was paying attention, it was obvious that Lucifer wasn't doing too hot at all. His unfocused gaze was burning a hole in the marble floor--not literally, of course, although Chloe wondered if he could actually do that--and sweat glistened on a brow that was a shade or two paler than normal. And unless Chloe was mistaken, his hands were shaking, even jammed into the pockets of his trousers as they were. He certainly looked the same way people did after witnessing a terrible crime, or taking a life to preserve their own. But he was... _YEAH._

He couldn't go into shock, could he?

_'The Devil also can't be hurt,'_ her brain _oh-so helpfully_  argued. But it had a point. She had shot him before, had seen him get hurt. _The Devil_ couldn't be hurt, but _Lucifer_ clearly _could._  Maybe he was more like people--like _humans,_ because he  _wasn't one,_ holy _crap_ how was this her _actual life_ \--than he liked to let on. So maybe he could go into shock over killing three people.

And what a shitty friend she was, if he had been going into shock all on his own while she practically forgot he was even in the same damn room.

He didn't react when she sidled up to him, his eyes remaining glued to the ground right in front of his feet. Up so close to him, he looked even more awful than before, dark circles like bruises beginning to form around his eyes and a faint tremor running intermittently down his rigid spine.

"Hey," Chloe said with a soft tone and an even softer brush of her hand across his forearm. He jerked as if her touch scalded him, alertness lighting his eyes again as they swung around to meet hers; almost as quickly, his gaze dropped to her left shoulder, and he refused to move it elsewhere, even when she took a step to the side to try and reestablish eye contact. 

"I- um..." He cleared his throat. "Would you like me to leave, Detective?" he asked, the question barely rising above a whisper, and still falling flat in that certain way all questions did when they didn't want to be asked.

Chloe nodded. She had no idea why Lucifer's expression suddenly shattered. "Yeah. You look..." There were so many ways she could finish that sentence. "There's a coffee downstairs with my name on it," she said instead. She took a few steps back towards the stairs, pausing when Lucifer made no move to join her. "Are you coming?"

He halted in his scramble to pick up the broken pieces of his carefully calm composure; he looked so odd, with his patchwork of shards, half of his emotions bared for her to see while the others had already been masked again. "With you?" he asked.

Chloe tried for a smile; she wondered if she had succeeded. "You look like you could use a coffee, too." And a shock blanket. And a bed, or at least a comfy couch. 

She tried not to overanalyze how much _easier_ she found it to breathe once he followed after her.

Ella hadn't been lying when she said an intern had been sent for coffee. Chloe would have thanked God when a uniformed officer passed her the thick paper cup, had she not suddenly found saying or thinking the words super weird, and probably a waste of God's time.

"It's going to be a long night," the uniformed officer warned when Lucifer turned down the offer for his own cup. 

"It's 4:00 PM."

"Yep," the officer confirmed, shaking the cup in Lucifer's direction. He still waved it off, to which the officer shrugged and continued on his rounds of ensuring everyone within spitting distance was hopped up on enough caffeine to fell a horse.

Chloe supposed it was a good thing he turned down the coffee. If he really _was_ going into shock, coffee was probably the last thing he needed. Speaking of... "Why don't you take a seat," Chloe said, carefully shepherding Lucifer in the direction of the nearest awaiting ambulance. "I'll find you a blanket, help you get warm."

"I'm fine, Detective," Lucifer said.

Chloe arched a brow at him. "You don't _look_ fine." In fact, he looked even worse than he had in the loft. The march down the stairs and out onto the street hadn't done him any favors at all, instead turning him as white as a sheet, and apparently impeding his ability to breathe evenly. And she still wasn't liking how absolutely _silent_ he was being, especially compared to his usual loud-and-proud self. "At least have the paramedics check you out?" Maybe _they_ could talk her partner into swallowing his pride and throwing a shock blanket around his shoulders; she knew his _I don't want to and you can't make me_ look when she saw it.

Lucifer grimaced. "I don't think that's a good idea."

Fine. Whatever. If he was going to be stubborn, then so be it. "Then how about we at least go somewhere a bit calmer," Chloe suggested, waving a hand to the edge of the police cordon line a bit farther down the road, where a cluster of police cruisers, SWAT trucks, and forensic vans offered a metal barrier against the chaos surrounding the loft. With any luck, she could get an officer to lend her the keys to a cruiser, where she could crank the heat up, just in case. Lucifer _seemed_ to be holding himself together well enough, but she didn't exactly have a copy of _Celestial Psychology for Dummies_ in her back pocket.

Lucifer nodded without further protest, which, for some reason, did nothing to make Chloe feel better about going along with his plan to avoid professional medical attention.

They had just made it beyond the cordon line and to the first row of cruisers when Lucifer suddenly stopped on a dime. His face had gone green around the edges, the muscle in his jaw coiling as he ground his teeth together. One hand flew out to plant itself on the trunk of the nearest car, the entire vehicle shaking as if a ram had leapt against it; Chloe _swore_ she saw it skid sideways a good two or three inches. 

_"Fuck,"_ Lucifer hissed under his breath, swallowing convulsively.

Chloe reached out to help steady him, but thought better of it and let her hand fall. "Lucifer?"

Lucifer didn't answer, just continued to clench and unclench his jaw as he focused on... _something._ The metal of the trunk door groaned beneath his fingers.

"There you two are!" Chloe's head snapped around to where Dan was jogging up to them, a small but relieved smile softening his eyes even if the expression didn't quite reach his lips. His anger at Lucifer appeared to have been banished by concern, at least for the moment. "Thank god you two are all right." He paused a few feet away from them, his smile twisting into a frown as he took in the air of worry that hovered around Chloe, and the stiff line of Lucifer's back. "...you two _are_ all right, aren't you?"

"I am," Chloe confirmed. "I think something's wrong with Lucifer."

"Well, _Jesus,_ Chloe, why didn't you bring him to the paramedics?"

Yeah, Chloe _really_ was staring to understand why Lucifer was so irked about the whole "invoking a celestial being" thing; it was like she was suddenly in on the world's most ridiculous joke. "He was fine a minute ago," Chloe almost growled. "It's not like he got shot!" Lucifer would have made a much bigger deal about it if he had--just like last time, although that might have just been because she was the one that had done the shooting--or he would be super dead at the moment. "I don't know what happened." 

Dan shook his head, taking a slow step up to Lucifer's side. "Hey, Lucifer? C'mon, man, you're worrying us here. Are you all right?" Dan got more of an answer than Chloe had: Lucifer's eyes slowly tracked over to him, but they didn't zero in and focus on him, instead staring right through him as if he wasn't even there. Chloe didn't like that look at _all._ "Lucifer?" Dan tried again, placing a firm hand on Lucifer's back, right below his shoulder blades, in an effort to establish some sort of grounding contact.

That had been the wrong move.

The second Dan's palm made contact, Lucifer pitched forward, a high-pitched whine working its way out of his throat. The pained light in his unfocused eyes blinked right out.

Then his knees buckled, and Lucifer dropped like a stone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For people waiting for an update for Operation: What the Probably-Not-Literal Hell...sorry, I had to write this!
> 
> This was supposed to be a oneshot, too, but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> I expect this’ll only be two or three chapters long, so stay tuned for some hurt!Lucifer, because a lot of fics have kinda just...glossed over the fact Lucifer that is walking around with like half an armory of bullets lodged in his wings. 
> 
> #SaveLucifer
> 
> EDIT: Holy crap, guys! Thank you so much for the overwhelming positive response! I absolutely adore this fandom, and every single one of you.


	2. One Hundred Eighty Pounds of Unconscious Devil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 2/7/2019

When Lucifer went boneless, two things happened simultaneously: Dan leapt away with a bitten-off swear, and Chloe dove for her partner after whipping her coffee cup into the passenger window of the adjacent SWAT truck. 

The two fell in a tangle of limbs, Chloe just managing to cradle Lucifer's head in her arms and save it from bouncing off of the asphalt. The air rushed out of her lungs in one big exhale as she was crushed under one hundred eighty pounds of unconscious Devil. She was sure she would develop a bruise across her shoulder blades to compliment the one already darkening her collarbone, but she found she didn't quite care about any of that.

"Holy shit!" Dan squeaked, popping back into her field of vision, his head blotting out the sun. "I barely touched him! What the hell?!" He reached a hand out as if to help, but apparently thought better of it and dropped it. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, but _he's_ not," Chloe said. She twisted her neck, peering down at where Lucifer's head rested on her chest--oh, the innuendos he would be making, if only he was still awake. Carding her fingers through his hair drew no response, not even a twitch, nor did patting his cheek. She swallowed the panic that was threatening to bubble up her throat. "Something's really wrong," she said, as if that wasn't already really obvious; people don't just black out without a pretty damn good reason.

"I barely touched him," Dan repeated. "Just on his back--" Dan paused, his eyes locked on the palm of the hand that apparently had the power to knock out Satan himself. "Chloe," he wheezed. He turned his hand around to show her, the sunlight reflecting off of the thick coat of vibrant blood that painted his entire hand, from the tips of his fingers to the heel of his palm, a few stray droplets beginning to run down his wrist. _"Chloe!"_  

Okay, yeah, _there_ was the panic.

"Help me get him up," Chloe demanded, keeping her hands well clear of Lucifer's back, and whatever damage was there that she couldn't see through the ridiculous amount of layers he insisted on wearing in the middle of a Californian summer. Instead, she braced her hands against the front of his shoulders and pushed. "Dan!"

"No, don't _move_ him," Dan cried, wiping his bloodied hand on the leg of his jeans, his face bleeding a paler and paler shade until he almost matched Lucifer's own. "His spine could be damaged. _Shit!_ You said he wasn't shot!"

"He wasn't!"

"People don't just spontaneously bleed!" Dan's head snapped around, back towards the loft and where the other officers were gathered. "Wait here with him, I'm going to get a paramedic." 

Dan didn't get even a step out of Chloe's line of sight before he stumbled, something catching his ankle. Somehow, without either of them noticing, Lucifer had reached out and grabbed Dan's leg in a vise-like grip, his head twisting at an awkward angle to fix Dan with a single-eyed stare that was bright with pain and definitely not fully lucid. 

"No," Lucifer croaked.

Dan's panicked gaze softened. "Hey, man, it's gonna be okay. Just-- Don't move, okay? I'm gonna go get some help." He tried to pull his leg from the hold Lucifer had on it, but all he succeeded in doing was yanking the limp consultant half off of Chloe's chest; it made it easier for her to breathe, yes, but the resulting agonized whimper from Lucifer constricted her lungs way more than his full weight had. 

"No!" Lucifer repeated. Dan winced as Lucifer tightened his grip. _"No."_ That was, apparently, all he could say; that one word, tinged with a terror that Chloe didn't understand. 

"Okay," Chloe said, her voice low and soothing as she ran her hand up and down the arm that kept Dan in place. "Okay. No paramedics, no hospitals." She brushed a thumb across his cheek. "We won't go anywhere. It's okay. You're all right."

_"No."_ All of his cobbled-together energy apparently spent, Lucifer's grip weakened, and his arm slipped back to the ground. His eyelids fluttered to half-mast, but they didn't close completely; Chloe was just happy he hadn't fainted again.

"Are you parked nearby?" Chloe tossed the question in Dan's general direction, keeping a majority of her attention on Lucifer. Her car was on the other side of the gaggle of officers and paramedics, which was a maze she wasn't keen on trying to navigate with an injured Devil hanging off her shoulder. 

"You can't be serious," Dan laughed. She shot him a glare. "You _are?_ He needs a doctor! He's bleeding!" Dan waved his hand, stained a rusty red, to make his point, as if Chloe didn't already know that, and couldn't already feel the blood seeping through her thin shirt. 

"He said no. And that it wasn't a good idea, earlier."

"Look at him, he's not even conscious. And he makes bad decisions even when he _is."_

"Yeah, well, recently I've decided to start taking what he says at face value." Chloe just hoped she wasn't about to make one hell of a mistake--one that Lucifer would be the one paying for. She raised her eyebrows. "Are you going to help me or not?"

Getting Lucifer back onto his feet was...an experience. Any twist of his spine, no matter how minor, had him reeling as if struck by a hammer. Touching him anywhere along his back was quickly revealed to be a no-go: Chloe did it just once when they finally reached Dan's car and she was forced to bear a majority of Lucifer's weight while Dan scrambled for his keys and got the doors unlocked; they had had to spend another five minutes carefully lifting him back off of the asphalt after he had collapsed again.

After a tense discussion that probably should have been classified as an argument, it was decided that Chloe would drive while Dan crammed himself in the back with Lucifer, since Dan's driving style was more fitting for a demolition derby than transporting a bleeding maybe-immortal. Lucifer would have probably appreciated her gentle turns and smooth decelerations, had he not been fading in and out of awareness faster than a narcoleptic hopped up on Ambien, repeatedly driving home the fact that something was _really freaking wrong._

"What happened?" he slurred upon his first awakening, right as they were leaving the loft in the rearview.

"You fell," was Dan's reply.

"Ha! Ba dum tss." 

The next awakening was less amusing for all involved, seeing as Lucifer apparently assumed Dan was one of Pierce's lackeys in need of a good strangling; Chloe paled at the thought of what might have happened, had Lucifer still had any sort of fine control over the arm he wasn't laying on. And the awakening after that, Lucifer stared at the back of Chloe's head in absolute silence with--according to Dan--the most haunted expression he had ever seen.

"So what's your big plan?" Dan asked after Lucifer had lapsed into his odd trance-like state once more. 

Chloe shrugged. "Get him back to his penthouse." Drink half of his bar. "Find out where the blood's coming from and stop it."

"You know who's good at that stuff? Doctors, at _hospitals._ Not two homicide detectives."

Chloe's grip on the steering wheel tightened, her knuckles bleeding white. "There's...stuff going on here that you don't know about, okay Dan?"

"Then tell me," Dan replied, "because from where I'm sitting, it looks like you're playing fast and loose with Lucifer's life, here." A grimace that was probably supposed to be a smile stretched across his face. "Lucifer's insanity finally rub off on you?"

"He's not insane," Chloe snapped with more heat than she had intended. He wasn't insane. She knew that now more than ever. At least, he wasn't insane in the same way that she had thought a couple of hours ago, in the same way that Dan _still_ thought. She ran a hand through her hair, tugging at her ponytail as she waited impatiently for the stoplight in front of her to turn green; turning on the lights and siren would be an abuse of power, she knew, but she was about at that point. _"I_ don't even fully understand what's going on."

Dan sighed behind her, and she swore she heard him mutter, "You're lucky you're worth the headache, you dick." He cleared his throat. "We can't bring him to the penthouse."

Chloe threw her hands in the air. "Do you have a better idea?" she asked, because she certainly didn't. If the idea was to avoid places with high traffic, then hospitals, clinics, and even vets were off the table. Back-alley mob doctors sounded like a viable option, but only if they were living in some weird film noir with a mediocre budget. 

A moment of silence passed. 

Then, "Take the next left."

Chloe did so without question.

She hoped it wouldn't turn out to be a mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super short chapter, I know, but I was just SO EXCITED about the news that Netflix picked up Lucifer, that I couldn't help but post this now. It'll probably bump the total number of chapters on this up, but I have a feeling none of you will be upset about that. The next chapter should be much longer.
> 
> ALSO. THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH for the amazing response to this! I had no idea that so many people would like it so much! I hope I can continue to deliver.
> 
> Please comment if you can! I love hearing from you guys. Your encouragement is what keeps me writing.


	3. For the Love of Gordon Ramsay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 2/7/2019

"You've got to be kidding me." Chloe twisted around in her seat to smack Dan's shoulder. "You want to bring Lucifer in _there?"_  

Dan rubbed at his arm with a glower. "It's better than his penthouse. Unless he's got a medic stashed in his closet or something."

Chloe wasn't even entirely sure Lucifer owned a box of Band-Aids. He had always seemed more of the "pour vodka on it, drink the rest of the bottle, call it a day" kind of guy when it came to open wounds. "I guess. But a _morgue?"_ she demanded, jabbing a finger towards the squat brick building with too few windows.

"You both said no to a hospital. You've lost the right to be picky." Dan deadpanned. He waved a hand at Lucifer, and the back seat that was surely stained beyond repair. Explaining _that_ to the fleet supervisor was going to be a _blast._ “On the bright side, we're already here if he bites it.”

“Dan!” Chloe wound up for another hit.

“I’m kidding!" Dan cried, diving for the nearest door. "Come on, let’s go before someone sees us."

Sliding Lucifer out of the car was a lot easier than trying to get him into it. They each threw an arm across their shoulders to support him between them, doing their best to look natural. Chloe was going for "three grieving friends going in to identify a body", but the way Lucifer's feet dragged-- _damn_ was he tall--probably made it look like "three friends that pregamed a bit too hard before going clubbing". Whatever. So long as nobody passing by on the street noticed the way Lucifer's head lolled to the side, or the wet patch of blood darkening a majority of the back of his suit jacket, she wasn’t concerned. Then again, they _were_ in LA; people tended not to look twice when strange things happened. 

Lucifer had made a pretty good choice on which human city to set up shop in, Chloe realized.

As they shuffled through the front doors, Lucifer blinked open again. He raised his head, inhaling through clenched teeth as the movement pulled at the muscles in his shoulders and upper back. His eyes, still too unfocused in Chloe's opinion, drifted from one stucco wall to another, and swept across the tile floor of the narrow entrance hall. "Where...?" he tried asking, but his voice caught in his throat. 

"M.E.'s office," Chloe said. "Dan's right. We need someone who can actually help.” So, morgue. Naturally. “You'll be fine, Lucifer."

"...who...?"

"A friend of mine. He’s an M.E. here," Dan replied. "He'll fix you up...whatever's wrong with you."

Lucifer frowned, his brow furrowing. He shook his head. _"No."_

"Don't worry, man, he's a good guy. He'll be discrete. Plus, he owes me a favor."

Chloe's lips curled into a grin. "I'm sorry, _who_ did you say Lucifer is rubbing off on?" she quipped. 

"I _knew_ you were going to say that." 

The hall opened up into a wide, warm lobby. Plush armchairs lined the left wall, bordering on three sides a low table that played host to a box of tissues, a stack of pamphlets detailing the grieving process, and a vase of few-day-old flowers that were just beginning to wilt. At the far end of the room, an empty secretary desk stood watch in front of a closed door, the sign on it reading "Employees Only". Beside that desk, another hall continued on for ten feet before cutting to the right, leading deeper into the building. 

Dan jerked his chin towards the hall next to the secretary desk. "Sun's office is down that way. Let's--"

The door behind the desk swung open. A young woman stepped out, a steaming mug of coffee in one hand, a cellphone clutched in the other. Chloe and Dan froze. The woman froze. Lucifer groaned, his head falling forward again. 

"Can I help you?" the woman asked after a beat. Her eyes focused first on Dan, and then on Chloe. They completely skipped over Lucifer. 

Well, if she wasn't going to ask, then they were just going to go with it. 

"Uh, we're here to see Sun. I'm a friend of his," Dan said.

"Mmhmm." The woman moved back to her desk and reclaimed her seat. "I'm afraid he's busy at the moment. He's preparing to conduct an autopsy."

Chloe nodded when Dan hesitated. "Right. That's what we're here for." Using her free hand, she fished her badge from her belt. "LAPD. We have a few questions for him about the deceased."

The woman's eyes narrowed in confusion. "I thought you guys thought it was an accidental drowning?"

Chloe shrugged one shoulder. "New evidence. Might not have been so accidental after all. We wanted to ask Sun a few questions before he started. Get a jump on the case, just in case whatever he finds confirms our theory. You know how it is."

The woman nodded. "Of course." She glanced down at the schedule book on her desk. "Doctor Sun should still be setting up, down in Theater Two, across from his office. Do you need help finding it?"

Dan shook his head. "No thanks, I've been down there before."

"All right. I'll page him, let him know you two are coming," the woman said, waving them through to the hall beside her desk. 

Dan frowned and opened his mouth, but Chloe reached around Lucifer's back and flicked his side. She shook her head minutely when he looked her way. The three shuffled by the secretary desk as quickly as they could manage, Chloe keeping the seated woman in the corner of her eye at all times to see if she ever reacted to Lucifer's presence; she didn't. Only after they turned the corner at the end of the hall did Chloe release the breath she hadn't even realized she had been holding.

"So we're just going to ignore how weird that was?" Dan hissed, keeping his voice low. _""Two"?_  Why was she acting like she didn't even notice him?"

_"Exposed,"_ Lucifer slurred, startling the both of them, as they thought he had lapsed into his trance state again. "Not _intimate._ Can't _see."_

"...is that supposed to mean something?" Dan asked.

Lucifer huffed. Both of his hands flapped uselessly, patting their arms. _"Intimate,"_ he said. But that was it. 

Dan and Chloe exchanged a glance. Babbling nonsense probably wasn't a sign of anything good. And Chloe, at least, had no idea if it actually _was_ nonsense, or just another instance of Lucifer's poor communication skills flipping the bird at comprehensibility. 

But Dan had a good point. That was twice now that Chloe had noticed people just...not realizing that Lucifer was there. They weren't just ignoring his presence, either, because Chloe would be able to _tell._ When people ignored something deliberately, their effort to not look in that person or object's direction was obvious; that person or thing would have an imaginary bubble around it, beyond which the ignorer's eyes would refuse to stray. But that secretary--and the officers back at the loft--weren't avoiding looking in Lucifer's direction. They _did_ look in his direction. But their eyes wouldn't pause, not even for a fraction of a second, as if he was just part of the scenery. Like he was invisible.

Like he was _invisible._

Son of a _bitch._

_'How in the hell are we supposed to get him help if nobody can see him?'_ Chloe wondered. _'I need to get him to turn this crap off without making Dan think I'm nuts.'_

But before she could think of a way to distract Dan that _didn't_ involve her sweeping him at the knees, Dan was jerking his chin towards a pair of double doors, one propped open by a stack of dog-eared medical textbooks, and leading them through. On the other side was a wide room, the back and right walls lined with counters, cabinets, and sinks, while the left wall was dominated by mortuary refrigerator units. Three examination tables, each approximately six feet from one another, spanned a majority of the center of the room, with the remaining space taken up by a small fold-out desk that was covered with papers, and a rolling chair that had had one arm rest snapped off and duct-tapped back on. And at that desk sat a thin man, his back to them as he scribbled furiously at a sheet of paper.

Dan cleared his throat.

The man held up one finger over his shoulder, and continued to write. "Espinoza," he greeted without looking. "Me taking your money twice a month not good enough for you, huh?"

"Wouldn't happen that often if you didn't stuff cards down your sleeve, and you know it."

"Hmm. Says the man that had three royal flushes in a row last week."

Dan sniffed, faking offense. "That was luck."

The man's shoulders shook as he chuckled. "Sure it was. The _devil's_ luck." Against her shoulder, Chloe felt Lucifer's ribs contract in the breath of what could have either been a laugh or a groan; she couldn't tell which. "Rebecca said you had a question about a case you're working?"

"Uh...I mean. _Technically,"_ Dan said haltingly. 

The man dropped his pen with a sigh, and spun his chair around. Chloe held her breath, waiting for the man's dark eyes to drift right over Lucifer, just as so many others' had in the past two hours. Instead, they almost immediately zeroed in on the inconsistently-conscious Devil. 

Well, there went Chloe's "he's invisible" theory.

"I'm not going to help you cover up a murder you committed, if that at all answers your question," the man deadpanned.

Chloe knew it was a joke, but she still felt herself bristle at the man's flippant attitude. "He's not dead," she said, her tone short and clipped.

The man raised an eyebrow. "Drunk?"

Dan shook his head. "He's bleeding, Sun," he said, nodding down to the stripe of dried blood darkening the leg of his jeans. _"A lot."_

"What?" That got Sun moving. He rushed over to their sides, somehow ducking under the arm Dan was supporting and stealing Lucifer away from them before either noticed what was happening. He half-dragged, half-led the staggering Devil to the nearest examination table, which was just low enough for Lucifer to slide onto without having to hop or be cognizant of what was happening around him. "Why the hell didn't you bring him to a hospital, Espinoza?!" 

Dan raised both of his hands in a shrug. "I don't know. Ask _them!"_

Chloe crossed her arms, suddenly feeling defensive, even though she kind of agreed with both of them. Lucifer probably,  _definitely_ needed a hospital, or at least not a morgue. "Because he didn't want to go."

"Yeah, neither did my son when he had strep. Nobody likes the hospital, but that doesn't mean you don't go when you need to." Sun said. He shook his head. "I'm not a people doctor, Espinoza."

"You went to med school."

_"Fifteen years ago._ You know what I've been doing since then? Chopping up dead people." 

"And putting them back together again. So can you just...put _him_ back together?"

Sun huffed. "Would you bring him to a hospital if I said _no?"_ Dan and Chloe both hesitated, which was apparently as good as writing “NO” with permanent marker on Sun’s glasses. "Then yes. _God._ I'm not going to let this guy bleed to death just because you're an idiot, Espinoza."

"I literally just said this was _their_ idea."

"And you went along with it." Sun fished a crumpled pair of medical gloves from the pocket of his lab coat, pulling them on with the snap of rubber against flesh. "Just be warned, my bedside manner is shit. Where's he bleeding from?" Sun didn't wait for an answer, instead circling the examination table for a quick visual inspection. His eyes snapped to the patch of darker, glistening fabric stretching across Lucifer's shoulders and down towards the middle of his back. _"Hell's bells._ All right. What's this guy's name?"

"Lucifer Morningstar," Dan and Chloe chorused.

"Wow. Really? Okay." Sun snapped his fingers a couple of inches from Lucifer's face to try and get his attention. "Mr. Morningstar? Can you take off your jacket and shirt for me?" Lucifer's eyes refocused and raised themselves from the floor, but they halted and lost their light halfway to Sun's face, and Lucifer started listing to the side. Sun caught him with an arm around the bicep and pushed him back into his previous slouched position; when he pulled his hand away, his palm was coated with a patchwork of blood. "That's not from his back." Sun leaned forward to inspect a blood-stained rip in the sleeve of Lucifer's jacket that Chloe hadn't noticed; she knew she shouldn't feel bad, what with everything else that had been happening for her to focus on, but like hell that was going to stop her from feeling like absolute shit. "Straight and neat. Something sharp. A knife? He get into a knife fight?" He glanced over his shoulder at Chloe and Dan, who both shrugged. "You two are useless. Would he be pissed if I sliced and diced his suit?"

"Probably," Chloe replied. "But it's already ruined."

Sun raised his eyebrows. "Blood washes out. Rips are mendable. This looks expensive."

Dan snorted. "He once threw out an entire Ralph Lauren suit because a seagull shat on him."

"Ah, he's rich. Noted. I'll be sending _him_ my bill." Sun shuffled over to one of the many drawers along the right wall, returning with a pair of fabric shears with heavy, thick blades. He made quick work of Lucifer's suit jacket, snipping off the fastened buttons and then slicing through his sleeves. It was only then that he paused, and pointed at the seven nickel-sized holes, newly uncovered, that had been punched through the fabric of Lucifer's shirt. "So I have questions."

Chloe felt dread claw at her heart. She surged forward, none too gently pushing Sun out of the way. Those were bullet holes. Those were _bullet holes._ Lucifer had been shot, and _she hadn't even known_. There wasn't any blood on the front of his shirt, but that didn't stop her from pressing her hands against his rib cage, gently flattening out the wrinkled shirt to try and glimpse any damage underneath--the damage she _just knew_ wasn't going to be there.

Lo and behold, the clammy skin beneath the shirt was unblemished, not a mark left behind. 

Her skeptic brain told her that there were thousands of things that could have made those holes, and explain the lack of physical damage to Lucifer himself. He could have even made them himself to further his whackadoo metaphor.

That was what she would have believed three hours previous. Now, though, her skeptic brain had been scooped out by a divine spoon, thrown into a blender with a heaping serving of truth, pureed, and then poured back into her skull. Things were still a little jumbled--like how the _hell_ he could survive being shot _only sometimes_ \--but there would be no more hiding behind a wall of denial for her.

"You told me he hadn't been shot!" Dan hissed from behind her.

"I didn't know!" Chloe replied. "He didn't tell me!" Why hadn't he told her? There was no damage to be worried about--here, anyway--but _why hadn't he told her?_

Dan clicked his tongue. "Thank god he at least took a page from your book, wore a vest." 

Chloe nodded shakily, even though _no, he really hadn't._

Sun, who had circled around behind Lucifer again, let out an impressed--and mildly disturbed--whistle. "In that case, I have even more questions," he said, voice quavering.

When they saw what had Sun so shocked, Dan swore in Spanish, and Chloe clapped a hand over her mouth, both horrified. The black of Lucifer's suit jacket had done a wonderful job disguising the true extent of the damage from them. The edges of the blood stain running along his spine and shoulder blades had been difficult to make out, blending in with the dark fibers as they had, so they could only rely on physical probing--which they had refused to do, as it caused Lucifer pain--and visual guesswork. 

With the white fabric of his button-up, there was no guesswork needed.

Bright red drenched the entire back of his shirt, from the collar down to where it was coming untucked from his trousers. The blood had even crept up over his shoulders and partially down the sleeves of his shirt to join the bloodstain from the cut that carved through his bicep. The fabric of his shirt was so thoroughly soaked in blood that it had begun to bead in places, and trickled down his spine in rivulets, each one collecting on his belt and dyeing the brown leather a macabre shade of maroon.

Chloe felt as if she might throw up.

Sun grabbed Lucifer's head, peeling back his drooping eyelids to stare into his unfocused eyes, and pressing his fingers to the pulse point in Lucifer's throat. After a moment, he switched his focus to Lucifer's wrist, glancing at the clock on the wall while the corners of his mouth pulled into a deeper and deeper frown. "Huh," he finally said.

"'Huh'?" Chloe echoed. "What?"

"Your friend isn't dead." At Chloe's glower and her not-so-subtle reach for her gun--a knee-jerk reaction, she _swore_ \--Sun raised his hands in surrender. "It's _weird,_ is all I'm saying. Mr. Morningstar here has lost a _lot_ of blood. Like, "knocking on Heaven's door". But as far as I can tell, his symptoms are more in line with a Class Two hemorrhage. It's like he's got double the amount of blood that he should." Sun paused. "Unless it's not all his. _He_ didn't kill someone, did he?"

Chloe was glad Dan's response in the negative drew Sun's attention, because her wince was answer enough, and she did _not_ want to be having the "Pierce is dead and _whoo boy is that not all"_ conversation right now. 

"Unless his symptoms suddenly take a dive, I'd say he's not about to kick it. Which is good for you all and your terrible, _terrible_ health decisions, because I was still a little iffy on not just calling an ambulance for him. Espinoza, see that cabinet over there? There's a stack of cleaning rags, and a bottle of saline solution. Bring those over." Sun brandished his fabric shears again. "Let's see what we're working with, here." 

Sun cut away the thinner dress shirt more carefully than he had the suit jacket, taking extra care whenever necessity brought the blades of his shears anywhere near Lucifer's back. Still, Chloe felt herself holding her breath and hovering near Lucifer's side, ready to sweep in and offer what comfort she could should things take a turn for the painful. But aside from one brief moment where he stared mournfully at the shredded remains of his jacket, Lucifer didn't appear to be zoned in enough to care about anything. Even when they peeled the shirt from his back, where it had been glued by all the blood like one giant Band-Aid, Lucifer hardly even blinked, and didn't make a sound.

Sun paused. Chloe and Dan paused. Lucifer, breaking the trend, shivered.

"Right. Okay. So you two are _absolutely sure_ this blood is his, right?" Sun asked. 

It was a fair question, because even though Lucifer's entire back was slick with blood, there wasn't a mark on him.

There _wasn't a mark on him._

Dan, too, had apparently noticed, for he reached his hand out towards Lucifer's back, but aborted the move before his fingertips could make contact. "No freaking way," he breathed. "His scars...what the hell, man?"

Those horrible scars, the ones that ran the lower curve of his shoulder blades, were just.... _gone._ In their place was a patchwork of paler skin that could have easily been mistaken for a case of focal vitiligo, the flesh there as smooth as the rest of his back, and _not at all_ what Chloe knew was supposed to be there. The very part of Lucifer that first made Chloe believe that there was more to him than a raving lunatic with a god complex had, impossibly, _vanished._  

They lived in LA, but Chloe knew that _nobody_ could rid Lucifer of those scars. Not this well, at least. They had been too big, too deep, too much of a sore spot for him to ever let anybody get near them. They were permanent, like God Himself had demanded that Lucifer be marked with them. 

Which, Chloe now knew, could very well have been the case, because she abruptly remembered the reason Lucifer had once given for the scars. At the time she had dismissed it as more of his usual delusional bullshit, but now? _Now?_

"That's where he..." It felt like a rock had lodged itself in her throat. Lucifer had hacked off limbs; it was a truth that was, for some reason, harder to swallow than him being the _literal goddamn Devil._

But if the scars meant he was a divine double amputee, then the _lack_ of those scars meant...

They meant.

"Oh, for the love of G-" _Don't say God,_ don't _say God_ \-- "-Gordon Ramsay!" 

And suddenly, everything made sense.

Kind of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not even God himself can convince me that Chloe wouldn't become an avid Gordon Ramsay fan after Lucifer introduced her to "Hell's Kitchen". Call it a headcanon. 
> 
> Look, a longer chapter! And look, a side character that somehow became more than just the plot device he was supposed to be! He's actually a partial reference to the main character from another TV show I've been devouring lately (although in that one he is less of a "I deal with dead bodies" guy and more of a "I make the dead bodies" guy). He wasn't even supposed to be a character in this, he kind of just happened (product of the thought "hey, Chloe and Dan probably don't know how to deal with bullets. Who would?"). But I like him. He's snarky.
> 
> Thank you all for reading! Please leave a comment, if you can!


	4. Celestial Truth Bomb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 2/7/2019

Despite what some of her coworkers thought, Chloe was a pretty damn good detective. She had a knack for putting clues together, even if they were seemingly small and insignificant. She liked to think that it was a skill perfected after spending two solid years deciphering Lucifer's cockamamie bullshit.

Which, really, nothing fit under the realm of "Lucifer's cockamamie bullshit" more than the conclusion her brain was drawing for her.

Lucifer had said once that he had cut off his wings. And he had said more recently that he had gotten his wings back...somehow.

If Lucifer never lied--and she could really, _truly_ believe that now--then that meant...

That meant.

Wings.

Okay. So Lucifer had wings. She didn't really know what to make of that. She supposed it made sense, what with the classical depictions of angels, but trying to picture them on _Lucifer,_ just...it wasn't happening.

But her brain was proficient at multitasking. It could have a meltdown _and_ sort out the situation at hand simultaneously; the chaos of motherhood had gifted her with _that_ skill. So while half of her brain was finally tucking itself into the corner to curl up, hug its knees, and rock a little bit, the other half was putting more and more clues together: (Wings + Blood From Nowhere) X Celestial Magic Or Whatever = Invisible-Wing Injury.

Or something.

That conclusion just opened up a whole new realm of problems, rather than solving any. For one, exposing Dan--and now Doctor Sun--to the new Bible-themed twist on her life was not something she had been counting on when she agreed to bring Lucifer to get better help than whatever she could have done with the knowledge the department-mandated first aid seminars had given her. She had foolishly assumed that whatever had happened to Lucifer was a normal, _human_ thing that could be treated through normal, _human_ means. At no point had she even entertained the idea that Lucifer's injury might have been something so out of left field as a wing injury, because that shit just didn't happen to normal human people, which was a category she still found herself sorting Lucifer into just out of habit.

She would have to learn to stop defaulting to human assumptions about a man that was  _not._ She would have to work on that after she dealt with the current situation. Somehow.

Sun had to be even more of a master at compartmentalization than Chloe was, because he snapped back into action while Chloe and Dan were both trying to catch up to the situation. While Chloe froze and Dan sputtered, Sun wet one of the cleaning rags with the bottle of saline solution, and carefully wiped at the blood painting Lucifer's back.

As more and more blood came away, Sun's frown pulled deeper and deeper. "There's an injury," he muttered. "There _has_ to be."

Chloe knew that look on his face. It was an investigative expression, a "there's something going on and I won't rest until I get to the bottom of it" look. She recognized it from herself and her colleagues, from the early days in her partnership with Lucifer when she had still cared why he was able to do the things he did, or why he was just so freaking weird 24/7. As a detective, she could appreciate Sun's expression, but as someone that didn't think dropping a celestial truth bomb was a good idea, she did _not._

"His arm!" Chloe suddenly cried, pointing to the deep slash in Lucifer's bicep, the skin around the edges swollen and an angry red. "You know? He's got a cut, and the blood could have..." She waved her hand vaguely along her own arm, up over her shoulder and to her back. "Yeah?"

"No. What? _No._ That's a big cut, but for it to bleed this much? He'd have to be a hemophiliac."

That seemed like as good an excuse as any. "He...is?"

Sun raised an eyebrow. "You sure?" he asked. "Because that cut on his arm? Already clotted just fine."

"...uh..."

"And even if it _was_ that cut, gravity is still a thing. The blood would have gone down his arm, not over his shoulder." Sun paused, turning to squint at Chloe. After a moment, he shook his head and tossed the stained cleaning rag onto the table next to Lucifer's limp arm. "Nope. See, I don't like being lied to, especially not when I'm _pretty sure_ I'm risking my job by playing mob doctor with you. And lying to me doesn't do anything to help Mr. Morningstar."

"Sun, what the hell are you talking about?" Dan demanded.

"Ms. Detective here has a worse poker face than you do, Espinoza. Something about this whole situation isn't adding up. I'm missing part of the equation, and _she_ knows what that part is," Sun said, gesturing towards Chloe. "It's a bad idea to withhold information from your doctor, you know."

Chloe bristled. "You have the information that's relevant." How would he react, she wondered, if she just flat-out told them that the Devil, basically comatose, was sitting on one of his autopsy tables? No, wait, she knew how that would go: with an awkward chuckle and a quick return to the conversation, the same way it always did.

"Clearly, I don't." Sun crossed his arms, his jaw setting in a scowl. "Seriously. You came to _me_ for help. Your friend is hurt, you should be giving me every little juicy tidbit, relevant or not. Or do you not actually want to help him?"

"Of course I do!" Chloe snapped. "How _dare--"_

Dan's restraining hand on her shoulder cut her off, and held her back; she hadn't even realized she had taken a step towards the autopsy table, as if she was going to vault over it and put her boot through Sun's teeth. "Chloe, knock it off. He's just trying to help."

"But he's not."

"Well, is he right?" Dan asked. "Is there something you're not telling him? _Us?"_ He lowered his voice. "What actually happened at the loft?"

 _"I don't know."_ And that was the truth. She _didn't know,_ only had vague theories that still smelled kind of like bullshit, and each and every one would make her sound psychotic if she shared them. "I told you, there's a lot going on. Complicated stuff."

"Then uncomplicate it," Sun said, which was a morsel of advice that Chloe wished was tangible enough to set on fire. "Start small. Like why your friend is bleeding buckets without any obvious injury."

Chloe threw her hands in the air. "I don't know, invisible wounds," she said, her tone apparently sarcastic enough that Sun and Dan took it as a joke, for they scoffed and snorted, respectively.

"Congratulations, Espinoza, you managed to find someone that's more frustrating than my mother-in-law!"

If Chloe was being honest, she probably deserved that, but she wasn't going to let that fact stop her from using the comment as fuel for her anger. "Dan, help me with Lucifer. We're leaving."

"What?" Dan cried. "We need Sun's help, Chloe!" He waved at the torn and discarded shirt and jacket, at Lucifer's hollow stare, at the blood across his back that oozed from nowhere. "We're not equipped to deal with this!"

"And neither is he!" Chloe retorted. She feared nobody was. How does one give aid to angel wings? Probably with another angel, but she didn't exactly have any of those on speed dial. Except, wait, no, maybe not on _speed dial,_ but maybe somewhere in her contact list. Lucifer and Amenadiel _were_ brothers, after all, so it stood to reason that he was an angel, too. Maybe he could help. She would have to give him a call, once she got Lucifer somewhere safe and sent Dan on his way. "This isn't working. It's time to try something else."

"Like what?" Sun asked. "You going to fix it with thoughts and prayers?" That wasn't too bad of an idea, actually, now that Chloe knew there _really was_ someone on the other end of that divine line. "Look. Does it have to do with something illegal? Drugs or something? Because I literally don't care. And who would I rat him out to? You're both cops."

"It's not drugs." Chloe could have hit herself. The answer came out automatically, before she had time to think. That would have been the perfect cover, especially since it was an excuse Dan would believe in a heartbeat. Hell, he probably even had a joint in his pocket. Then she could have taken Lucifer and gotten the hell out of there.

"Then what?"

Chloe ground her teeth together. "Nothing I say would help Lucifer."

Movement out of the corner of her eye drew her attention down to one of Lucifer's hands. For a split second, she could have sworn she saw his fingers twitch. Had they always been curled so tightly around the edge of the table?

"I can't know that until you _tell me!"_ Sun brought one of his hands down on the autopsy table with a hollow _bang._

Chloe would have jumped at the sound, had she not found herself at the opposite end of the room between one second and the next.

Chloe blinked, then blinked again, somehow feeling the same way she did directly after recovering from a dizzy spell, that same quick burst of adrenaline flooding her system as her vestibular sense and body finally caught up to one another.

"What the fuck?" Dan asked from somewhere to her left, much farther away than he had been just a second ago. She turned her head, finding him a good ten feet away, both him and Sun staring at her with either dropped jaws or wide eyes. The autopsy table between them was empty.

Chloe's head snapped back around and up, to where Lucifer was crouched above her, his arms feeling like immovable iron--even while trembling with the effort--as they cradled her to his chest. His eyes were turned in the direction of Dan and Sun, but his gaze was still unfocused, caught somewhere in the space between them.

"Am _I_ on drugs?" Sun muttered, mostly to himself.

"What? But, Chloe-- _what?"_ Dan asked, eloquent as always.

Something in Lucifer's chest rumbled, a infrasonic noise that Chloe didn't hear but _felt,_ her rib cage tightening as an inexplicable feeling of uneasiness and panic compressed her lungs. Something wasn't right, the way his eyes snapped back and forth between Dan and Sun, seeing but not _really_ seeing; it reminded Chloe of all of those nature documentaries Trixie and Maze liked to watch together on the weekends, where the jaguar was just moments from ripping the throat out of the unsuspecting tapir.

Dan turned towards them fully, and took a tentative step forward. "Chloe, how did--"

Chloe wasn't sure what deep instinct demanded she bark out a warning, but she listened to it without question. "Dan, _don't!"_

The infrasonic sound swelled, erupting from Lucifer's throat as a guttural growl, the likes of which Chloe had never before heard. Dan fell to the ground at the primal warning, belting out a startled cry. Sun leapt backwards, managing to catch himself on the next autopsy table down the line. The heel of his palm came down a few inches shy of where he had abandoned his fabric shears, which bounced up from the force of his blow, somersaulting them right over the edge. They struck the metal grating of the floor drain near the head of the second autopsy table, the sharp, echoing _crack_ ricocheting down the pipe beyond it.

Lucifer was quiet, but not so quiet that she didn't hear his fevered whisper of "No," repeated over and over under his breath.

Lucifer pulled her closer, dropped his head to bury his face in her shoulder, and _screamed._

Later, Chloe would wonder if she imagined the heat in the room skyrocketing, the walls trembling and earth shaking, the very air around her pushing inwards with an impossible weight. She would wonder if she imagined the roaring she heard in her ears, the sound of the door slamming closed on its own, the snap of fire and shattering rock. She would wonder if she imagined the scent of sulfur and ash that forced its way up her nose and down her throat. Even though none of those things lasted for longer than a handful of seconds, and left no traces behind afterwards, she knew she hadn't imagined them.

The lights overheard burst, shattering in a shower of hissing sparks that vaporized the shards of plastic and glass before they could hit the ground, and the windowless room was plunged into darkness and suffocating silence.

Well, not _complete_ darkness.

Chloe opened her eyes, only to immediately slam them shut again against the bright white glow that leapt at the chance to dig its claws into her eye sockets. It wasn't a blinding light--it was actually rather dull--but it was _so close_ to her that that didn't matter, wrapped around her as it was, like a cloak of living light. It took her breath away even with her eyes closed, painting the insides of her eyelids red. That red stayed behind, splattering the white light, when she cracked her eyes open again.

She frowned.

Oh.

_Oh._

She reached out a tentative hand, so very slowly, until just the fingertip of her middle finger brushed against the white light's surface. She snatched her hand back, pulling it close to her chest on reflex, when part of the light fell away at her barely-there touch, the shard falling into her palm. She stared at the shard, cupping her hands around it and holding it so close to her face it nearly brushed her nose. It was soft and rough, bright and dull, white and red. It weighed next to nothing, but the longer she held it and stared at it--milliseconds, or perhaps millennia--the more it dragged at her and weighed her down. It was a foreign object, completely unfamiliar, but at the same time she couldn't help but recognize it; she had, after all, seen the shard's brethren mere hours ago, scattered on the floor of a broken loft.

A feather.

It was a feather, nearly as long as her forearm and just as wide, and glowing with an impossible internal light.

An _angel_ feather. Or a Devil feather. A piece of divinity, placed right there in her palm. In all its bloody glory.

And that was when all hell broke loose.

"What the _fuck?!"_

From above her came a thunderous snarl, right before the arms that had been supporting her and the wall of feathers that had cocooned her were whisked away, leaving her sat on the ground in a dazed heap. The movement was almost too quick for her to track as Lucifer shot towards Dan like a hound after a wounded rabbit, a flash of white and red trailing after him. He dropped his left shoulder and rammed straight into Dan's stomach, hard enough that Dan flipped backwards over the autopsy table, arms and legs flailing, until he hit the ground with a breathless and undignified squeak. Lucifer's eyes swept up to meet Sun's, who didn't look thrilled by the attention _at all,_ and then...

And _then._

The thing against Lucifer's back, white and red and faintly glowing, _unfurled._ It was a wing, nearly twice as long as Lucifer was tall, with gleaming white feathers that ranged from the size of a finger to longer than Lucifer's leg. It was gorgeous, and breathtaking, and such a divine sight that Chloe felt herself holding back tears as she questioned how anything in the world could possibly compare to such a magnificent thing.

And then the wing snapped forward, bending and twisting in a way that shouldn't have been possible for a limb with so few joints. With the sharp ring of metal against metal, the pinions sliced clean through the head of the autopsy table closest to him, cutting through steel as easily as the wing did air. The points of the primaries missed Sun on the other side by mere inches, the weak glow of the emergency lights glinting off of an unseen edge.

Dan leapt to his feet and scrambled backwards, his eyes blown wide with confusion and terror, his jaw working soundlessly. A hand flew to his side and groped blindly at his hip in search of his handgun; he didn't find it, of course, seeing as he had left it in the car outside when its bulk had gotten in the way of him supporting Lucifer's weight.

How long ago that trek seemed, even though it had hardly been fifteen minutes.

Lucifer's head swung around, his lips pulling away from his teeth in a feral grin as he zeroed in on Dan once more, his attention drawn by the sudden movement. His wing spread outwards again to dominate a good portion of the room, the feathers along the arm of it ruffling and standing on end. He dropped his head low, that infrasonic sound in his chest rising in pitch as he took a deliberate, prowling step towards Dan.

"Shit! Shit! _Shit!"_

Chloe's knees felt as if they were made of jelly, but she forced herself to rise all the same. "Lucifer," she called, her voice sounding raw and squeaky. She cleared her throat and tried again, louder this time, but Lucifer didn't so much as flinch at the sound of his name. Before she fully realized what she was doing, Chloe had planted herself between Lucifer and Dan, her hand firmly pressing against the pale flesh over his sternum. The low growl that rumbled in his chest shot through and down her arm, vibrating her very bones and making her teeth rattle in her skull. "Lucifer, _stop,"_ she ordered. She searched his face, hoping to find some sign that he was there with her, in the present, and not still trapped in the pain-induced haze that had claimed him back in the alley. But she found none. Still, his advance on Dan slowed as a flash of exhaustion and discomfort flitted across his twisted face. "Lucifer?"

"Bloody _cockroach,"_ Lucifer suddenly slurred, practically hissing. "Knew s'Mark wasn' really gone."

Mark? _What_ mark?

 _'The Mark of Cain,'_ she abruptly recalled. The sign that Lucifer had once insisted marked their ex-lieutenant as the immortal original murderer. But why bring that up now? Unless...

Unless Lucifer thought Pierce wasn't as dead and gone as he was, or as dead and gone as Chloe _hoped_ he was.

"I'm gonna _kill him."_ The words were spoken with such ferocity, such a fire that Chloe felt them burn through her, very nearly knocking her feet out from beneath her. The conviction in those words shook the walls around them, the cabinets and their contents rattling. Behind her and beside her, Chloe heard Dan's rapid breathing and Sun's high-pitched cursing as Lucifer's eyes lit up, glowing such a bright yellow that they flared a dazzling white.

But Chloe didn't pull away. "Pierce _is_ dead," she said. Then, swallowing the rock lodged in her throat, she said, "Cain is gone." Her first time admitting, out loud, that everything supernatural around her was _real_ left her tongue feeling numb. "He won't hurt any of us again. Look, see?" She placed her other hand on his face, palm against his jaw and thumb stroking his cheek, forcing his head to bow and look from Dan to her. The white light in his eyes dimmed. "I'm okay. You're okay. _Everyone_ is _okay."_ His wing began to sag as his energy waned, the deep growl whisked away on an exhale. “It’s okay.”

Lucifer blinked rapidly, like he was trying to clear his eyes of something. And then his knees buckled for the second time in as many hours, his wing snapping closed against his back as Chloe tried and failed to help him remain standing. Lucifer barely managed to catch himself in time, one hand crushing the lip of the autopsy table in a death-grip that twisted his fall so that he landed on his left side, rather than on his face. He didn't make a move to try and rise again, but Chloe chose to take the fact that he was blinking owlishly--and wasn't just unconscious again--as an encouraging sign.

"Chloe, _get away from him!"_

Chloe cursed under her breath. It wasn't like she had forgotten that Dan and Sun were still there, but she had been hoping that their presence wouldn't become something she had to confront for another few minutes, at the very least. Maybe never. Never would have been good, too.

Instead of listening to her ex-husband's plea, she crouched at Lucifer's side, her hand hovering over where his wing curled over his arm, almost shielding him from the outside world; it didn't feel right touching it--an angel's wing, a _freaking angel's wing--_ without Lucifer's express permission. She called to him softly, and was surprised when his wing shifted, sliding up to hide more of his body away. She frowned; that wasn't the response she was looking for.

"Chloe!" Dan said again, more urgently. Chloe glanced over her shoulder at him, and found him still up against the cabinets on the other end of the room, having practically crawled onto the counter top in a futile attempt to avoid Lucifer's anger. If some part of her primal lizard brain didn't understand that urge, she would have laughed.

"No, Dan," Chloe said. "He's still hurt." And she could actually _see_ the injury, or at least half of it; she assumed that he didn't have just the one wing. The left one had to be hiding still, wherever he tucked them away to when he wanted to play human.

But just the one wing was a sight to behold. She had been caught up in the splendor of it earlier, dazzled by the sheer beauty, her brain grinding to a halt as it tried to process it. And while the compulsion to burst into hysterical laughter still lurked somewhere deep within her, the effect that the wing had on her psyche seemed to have worn off enough for her to realize that Lucifer's wing was _an absolute wreck._

Almost the entire wing was dyed with blood, both fresh and already dried. The feathers that weren't stuck together with the macabre glue were bent at odd angles. Worse yet were the feathers that were just missing entirely, leaving wide gaps between the flight feathers. The primaries somehow looked the worst off: some were folded backwards and stuck, and some had been snapped clear in half, blood trickling from the jagged ends of the feather shafts.

Chloe had no idea what having a wing felt like, but the damage before her _had_ to be _agonizing_. No wonder Lucifer was having such a hard time staying lucid.

"Do you hear yourself?!" Dan cried. "Just.. _.look!_ The wing, and-- and his _eyes!_ He's-- _He's...!"_

"The Devil," Chloe said, voice firm. A shiver went down her spine, an odd pressure in her chest ebbing; she hadn't even realized it had been there before. Saying _that_ out loud was so very much different than saying Pierce's actual name. Admitting supernatural or biblical things were real was one thing, but this? Naming it? Naming _him?_ Fully admitting, to herself and to others, that her best friend was the literal Devil? It was almost too much to handle.

And it was immensely freeing, like she could finally take a full breath.

"Yes, he is." she said. ' _My best friend's the Devil.'_ "Your point?"

"My _point?!"_ Dan sounded on the edge of hysterics. Chloe hoped he never saw Lucifer's other face, if he couldn't even handle a single wing. "He's--"

"--exactly who he's always told us he is," Chloe said, interrupting again. "He never tried to hide it. He's the same Lucifer that we've known for two years, so stop freaking out."

Dan shook his head. "How are you just so..." He waved a trembling hand in a gesture that was probably supposed to mean something.

Chloe shrugged. "He believed in me when nobody else did." _'Even you'_ went unsaid. "I figured I'd return the favor." She smiled; Lucifer would probably get a kick out of that.

Sun surprised her by clearing his throat. "Yes, yes, that's all very nice and sappy and shit, but do you think you can get my patient up off of the floor? It's not the ideal environment for open wounds. Plus he's getting blood, like, _everywhere,_ and I just waxed the floors yesterday."

Dan's eyes briefly flicked his way, before returning to stare at Lucifer. "Are you kidding me?" he asked. "You're just _okay_ with this, too?"

"It was a bit of a shock at first, but yeah, I guess."

"How?!"

Sun raised a hand, palm towards the ceiling in a noncommittal gesture. "Atheist."

Chloe snorted. "Gonna rethink that now?"

"I absolutely will not.”

From the floor came a breathy, muffled chuckle. "Oh, I _like_ him."

Dan jumped, Sun leaned over the autopsy table, and Chloe turned her attention back to the one-winged Devil she crouched beside. His wing still covered a majority of his body, including his head, but she could see enough of his back to tell that his breathing had calmed back to a normal rhythm, or at least near enough to one.

"Lucifer?" Chloe prompted. "You back with us?"

From beneath the wing came a groan, poorly disguised as a sigh. "Must I be?" Lucifer asked in what was _definitely_ not a whine. He rolled off of his side and onto his stomach, and slowly raised himself off of the floor to settle on his knees; Chloe didn’t like the way his wing didn’t follow his movement, instead remaining limp and drooping to the floor. Lucifer, seeming to ignore it, pressed the knuckles of a fist against his closed eyes and brow bone. “Why is it so dark in here?”

Chloe didn’t know whether to smile or frown. “Your eyes are closed.”

“Yes,” Lucifer said, “but it tastes dark.”

Chloe exchanged a look with Sun, who shrugged unhelpfully. Maybe Lucifer really _wasn’t_ fully with them. Or maybe the Devil could taste shadows. Chloe was fairly certain she would just accept anything she was told at this point.

Lucifer dropped his hand to peer around the lab, his eyes narrowed in slow-churning confusion. “I believe I may have missed something,” he said. “This isn’t the loft.” His gaze dropped to the crumpled, bloody wing that rested next to him on the floor. He blinked. His eyes flew wide as he hissed an emphatic _“Bloody hell.”_

The wing furled against Lucifer’s back with a snap and a bitten-off yell as Lucifer’s face blanched and twisted, his body tilting sideways a few precious inches before he caught himself again.

“Oh, you goddamn idiot,” Sun said, hurrying to round the autopsy table and drop into a crouch at Lucifer’s side. “Don’t move if it hurts so much!” He reached out a hand to steady the listing Devil, but Lucifer leaned farther away from him with a bemused stare and a wary once-over of the other man.

"I don't believe I've had the pleasure," Lucifer said after a moment.

"Doctor Sun, medical examiner. Your friends brought you here to get patched up."

Lucifer peered at both Chloe and Dan out of the corner of his eyes, his mouth pulling downward when Dan flinched at the brief, indirect attention. "Did they now?"

Sun bobbed his head. "They have a strange aversion to bringing bleeding people to hospitals. Well, I thought it was strange up until five minutes ago, at least. Not anymore." Sun appeared to ignore the way Lucifer's wing raised a fraction of an inch against his back, and the wince that resulted from the slight movement. "So? Ready to get up off the floor so I can actually help you?"

Lucifer sniffed, then shook his head. "I'll be just fine on my own, thanks. Little kip and I'll be good as new."

Sun quirked an eyebrow. "Every single corpse in the cooler looks better than you do right now." Lucifer scoffed. "All right. This isn't a hospital, so I can't hold you here. If you want to leave, then go on."

Chloe opened her mouth to protest, but Sun silenced her with a quick look and a small shake of his head. Sun rose up and leaned against the destroyed autopsy table, feigning disinterest by picking at his nails as Lucifer struggled to his feet; by the end of it, Lucifer's breathing had picked back up again, and his face had gone green around the edges. He made it exactly two paces towards the door before he halted, his hands curled into fists and his jaw clenching. He breathed out slowly through his nose.

"Something the matter?" Sun asked, his tone sickeningly sweet. "Ten feet too much for your _just fine_ self?"

The way Lucifer twitched, the only thing keeping him from whirling around to face—and punch—Sun was the fact that doing so would probably be agonizing. Chloe made it easier on him, walking around to stand just in front of him. Something about the floor must have been terribly interesting, what with how he didn't raise his attention from it.

"Lucifer, you're hurt. Doctor Sun is just trying to help. So, let him? Please?"

Lucifer's eyes snapped up to meet hers. It was the first time he had _actually looked at her_ while fully conscious since the shitshow in the loft; she was surprised at how relieving it felt just to make eye contact with him again, how much she had missed it. She smiled encouragingly.

After a moment, Lucifer huffed out a breath, and rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. "Very well," he sighed.

"Phenomenal," Sun deadpanned. "Now that we've got that settled, why don't we move this little shindig to the next lab over?" He waved a hand at the shattered light fixtures overhead, and the weak emergency lights that were doing their best. "It's dark as hell in here."

Out of all four of them, only Lucifer's stifled chuckle broke the silence.

Sun shrugged. "Well, I thought it was pretty funny."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nobody can convince me that any inhuman growl Lucifer could make WOULDN'T be infrasonic. Nobody. Google that shit if you're not familiar with it. It's pretty rad.
> 
> Sorry this chapter took so long to get to y'all. I knew that the Reveal with Dan (and Sun, and also Chloe in a way) was going to happen, and I wanted to make sure I got it right, or at least. Like. Kind of right. Which is why I typed out three different versions of this chapter, all focused around different reveal scenarios. So yeah, that's why it took A LITERAL MONTH HOLY SHIT I JUST LOOKED AT THE UPDATE LOG. Oh that's a riot. I didn't even plan for this. Holy hell. Whoops.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Thanks for sticking with me during this month of silence! Please leave a comment if you can. Remind me not to take a literal godddamn month for the next chapter lol.
> 
> #LetDanSayFuck2k18


	5. Pentapods Aren't a Thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey fam.

What with how her entire life was turning out, Chloe should have known that things weren't going to suddenly become a walk in the park.  

Lucifer's energy waned by the time they had crossed the hall into a lab that hadn't been subjected to a Devil-bomb detonation; he didn't admit it, of course, but Chloe could tell by the crease in his brow, the coiled muscle in his jaw, the way the toes of his shoes scraped across the tile. She pressed into his side without a word, offering support, and he leaned against her with a quiet, grateful sigh. 

Chloe caught Dan's eye and jerked her head, gesturing to Lucifer's other side; it'd be easier on both her and Lucifer if they had help. But Dan shook his head, maintaining the wide berth he was giving them, and earning himself a reproachful glare. Chloe couldn't blame him for being cautious around the literal Devil--a Catholic upbringing would do that--but at the same time, the muscles in her arms and legs were screaming at him to just get over it, because Lucifer had been heavy _before_ he had a wing, and the extra weight was in no way helping. 

The lab across the hall was much smaller than Sun's. Usually used by teary-eyed mourners to identify the bodies of loved ones and grieve in private, only one autopsy table was crammed into the small space. Much of the room on the counters that lined the walls was taken up by tissue boxes, more pamphlets about the grieving process, and a few handouts detailing the next steps in laying the deceased to rest; those were printed out on pastel paper, as if that would make the difficult time easier to bear.

Chloe had barely helped Lucifer cross the threshold into the undamaged lab before he sucked in a breath through his teeth and pulled away from her. He staggered without her support, but caught himself with a forearm against the wall, blinking rapidly under the glare of the fluorescent light. 

"Lucifer-"

"I'm fine," he said. The sweat beading on his forehead begged to differ; Chloe didn't think she had ever seen him sweat before. 

He stood there a moment, sagging against the wall and leaning his forehead against the glass cabinet door as he closed his eyes and breathed through his nose, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed repeatedly to bury the nausea.

Chloe hovered at his side. The moment he no longer looked in danger of keeling over or emptying his stomach contents all over his shoes--could the Devil even get sick?--she made to duck back under his arm, but Lucifer shied away from her in a move that was uncomfortably close to a cringe. She paused, frowning, and that was all Sun needed to swoop in with a sharp whistle and a nod to the autopsy table.

"Honestly, Doctor, I can--"

"Shut up? Genius. Come on. You're bleeding all over, like, _everything."_

As Sun helped Lucifer hobble over to the autopsy table, Dan reached out from where he stood frozen in the doorway, and yanked Chloe toward him.

"Ow. _Dan._ " She pulled her arm out of his grip. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me?" Dan hissed. "What's wrong with _you?"_  He babbled something in Spanish, too quick for Chloe to try and muddle through a translation. _"The Devil!_ The literal goddamn Devil!"

Chloe crossed her arms. "Yeah. I know. And I already told you, it changes nothing. He's still the same person we've known for years."

"Chloe, he's not even a person at all!"

A sharp intake of breath distracted Chloe just long enough to keep her from reaching out and smacking Dan across the face. She glanced over towards the right, where Lucifer was sat on the autopsy table, his head lowered as he aggressively avoided eye contact. Chloe ground her teeth together.

"We're not doing this here," she growled. Wrapping her hand up in the collar of Dan's shirt, she shoved him back through the doorway and frogmarched him backwards, deeper into the morgue. She ran him up against the wall; only then did she let go of him to snap, "That was completely uncalled for."

"Chloe, you don't understand-"

"No, I think I understand perfectly."

"He's _evil!"_

"No, he's a _dork,"_ Chloe said. "He steals your pudding, and breaks into my apartment to make omelettes, and rearranges the furniture in the station so everything's three inches to the left, and he helps Trixie with her homework when he thinks I'm not paying attention-"

Dan's eyes flew wide, his jaw working silently as the air crackled uselessly in his throat. _"Trixie,"_ he breathed. "He's been around our daughter. _The Devil_ has been around _our daughter."_

Chloe would be lying if she said the thought didn't turn her stomach, even for a second. She wasn't religious, not by a long shot, but she didn't have to be to know that the Devil having a close relationship with a child would throw any number of people into cardiac arrest. And she would be lying if she said that some part of her, deep within her brain, wasn't screaming at her to get her ass in gear, grab her daughter, and run for the hills to try and protect her from the creature that an entire religion was terrified of. 

A good Christian mother would take her child and run.

But, well. Chloe wasn't a good Christian. Or a Christian at all, really, although that was a topic she now probably had to revisit.

"Oh, my god, he's going to take her soul. Take _our souls,"_ Dan said, his voice quavering.

"What? No he isn't," Chloe scoffed. "He told me he doesn't care about souls." Way back at the start of their partnership, when Chloe still hadn't been willing to even call it a partnership at all.

"Then he was lying."

"He doesn't lie, Dan." Omit things, yes, and twist words to find loopholes that nobody else would think of. But he didn't lie, _ever._

"He lied about Pierce!" Dan suddenly barked. What little colour remaining in his face drained away, leaving him washed out and grey, the muscle in his jaw coiling as he clenched his teeth. That rage that had been burning in Dan's eyes for the past day--the rage that had died down to just a spark when he had realized that Lucifer was injured--returned full-force; Chloe would have called it a fire, had she not seen what _actual fire_ in someone's eyes truly looked like. "He lied about Pierce, and he got Charlotte killed. He _knew_ about... _He killed Charlotte."_ Just as quickly as it had come, the rage dwindled again, drowned by the grief that washed over his face. "How can he not be evil?"

"He _didn't_ kill Charlotte," Chloe said softly. She reached out and brushed her hand over his shoulder, trying to provide some modicum of comfort. "I...have basically no idea what happened, or what's happening. But I know that Charlotte's death wasn't Lucifer's fault. She's the one that chose to investigate Pierce."

Dan brought a shaking hand up to his face, covering his misty eyes. He sniffed, a quick and wobbling inhale. "He could have tried to stop her."

Chloe cracked a small smile, even though Dan couldn't see it. "Not even the Devil himself could stop Charlotte Richards from doing anything she wanted to do." Dan barked a short, humorless laugh. "It was her decision. You can't blame Lucifer for it."

"I know," Dan said. "I want to, but...I know." He sniffed again, and dropped his hand from his face. His eyes were red and wet, but no longer looked in danger of spilling over. After a moment, he asked, "Seriously. How are you not freaking out about this? And don't give me more of that _benefit of the doubt_ crap."

Her smile grew into something just a bit wry. "Well, the agnosticism helps." Dan snorted and rolled his eyes. "But it's mostly because he's our friend. As far as I'm concerned, not that much has changed."

Dan ran a hand through his hair once, opened his mouth, and then raked his fingers through his hair two more times. "I don't know if I can be," he finally whispered. At Chloe's raised eyebrows, he clarified: "His friend. Not anymore."

"Dan-"

"I can't even look at the guy, Chloe! I see him, and all of my abuela's warnings about consorting with the Devil come rushing back." He ran his fingers through his hair again in an effort to rid himself of his nervous energy; but his hands kept shaking. "I know I shouldn't be afraid of him, not after getting to know him, but I _am."_

Chloe sighed, spun on her heel, and dropped back against the wall, shoulder-to-shoulder with Dan. For a good long while, the two of them stood abreast one another, soaking in the silence. 

Ever so slowly, Dan's breathing evened back out again, his face regained its colour, and his hands stopped shaking enough that he was able to straighten out his disheveled jacket. 

Finally, once Dan no longer looked like he was going to pass out, Chloe asked, "Do you want to go home?"

"What?"

"Once Lucifer's better, I'll call us a Lyft." She leaned sideways, bumping her shoulder against his. "Go home." Dan scoffed and shook his head. "Why not? You don't want to be here."

"No, no I don't," he agreed. "But I'm not leaving you here by yourself." He paused, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. "Or him. I guess."

Chloe raised her eyebrows. "I thought you were scared of him."

"I'm _terrified._ He cut a table in half with _feathers._  But...he's hurting. I can't just leave him."

"Aw," Chloe said, smiling.

"All I mean is that if he tried something, he’d lose. I could probably take the Devil in a fist fight right now."

An image of the loft flashed through Chloe's mind: the dead or unconscious gunmen, the shattered window and stone banisters, the carpet of bloodied feathers. Cain's body, the curved knife jammed through flesh and solid bone as if it was nothing, the fingers clutching that knife bent at unnatural angles, like the bones inside had been too pulverized to even hold a recognizable shape. And all of that, she now knew, had been done while working through the agony of at least one mangled wing. 

An involuntary shudder ran down her spine.

"Dan, you know I believe in you. But, no. You couldn't."

Down the hall, something metal clattered to the tile floor, the sound echoing and sharp. It was followed by a yell, a fierce bellow of pain that was cut off by a loud, hollow bang, and vehement swearing muffled by the concrete walls. Chloe and Dan both exploded into action, sprinting back down the hall and through the door of the small lab.

Lucifer was collapsed on his side on the autopsy table, his knees drawn up as if to protect his stomach, his chin tucked into his chest, his eyes shut tight as he gulped in breath after breath through his clenched teeth. His one wing was crushed underneath his body, folded more like an accordion than a proper wing probably should have been, more and more of the feathers bleeding red as whatever wounds that were hidden beneath them reopened again. His left arm was pinned between his body and his wing, but the right was curled up and over his torso, his fingernails bloody from where he had clawed furrows into the flesh of his upper rib cage and back, like he had tried to dig at something beneath the skin. Sun stood behind him, a large splatter of blood marring the front of his lab coat from where he was leaning over the wingless half of Lucifer's back. Both of his hands were wrapped around Lucifer's wrist in a vice to prevent him from doing any more damage; it was a battle Sun was apparently losing, his arms shaking from the strain as Lucifer fought to eviscerate himself. 

"Took you two long enough," Sun groused the moment they crashed through the doorway. He sounded sarcastic, like he was teasing them, but his eyes were a bit wider than they had been before, his face stricken and a shade paler. "You two have fun talking through your feelings while your friend was dying?"

Chloe felt her heart leap into her throat. "He's _dying?"_  

"No. Yes. I don't know. I skipped the week we covered Devil biology in med school. " He jerked his chin to the pile of cleaning rags he had brought over from his lab. "Grab those for me and bring them here. Espinoza, make yourself useful and keep him from flaying himself."

While Chloe scrambled to gather the cleaning rags, Dan slid sideways up to the autopsy table, his eyes tracing the line of Lucifer's wing. His gaze stalled on the razor-sharp pinions that had sliced through solid metal, and were now slicing the calves of Lucifer's trousers to ribbons as he squirmed. He hesitated, his breath catching in his throat.

"Shit, Espinoza, he's not going to bite you!"

Dan shook his head, breaking his trance. "It's not his teeth I'm worried about," he said. "Well, I mean, _now_ I am. Thanks." Still, he grabbed onto Lucifer's arm, nodding to Sun to let go.

Chloe, returning with the meager handful of cleaning rags, faltered at Sun's side. Lucifer's back had mostly been wiped clean before they had changed labs; at the very least, he had no longer looked like he had rolled around in a puddle of red paint. 

Now, though, his back was once again slick with blood. It seemed to well up from the edges of the crescent of discoloured skin just under Lucifer's left shoulder blade, running over his spine to soak into the wide scapular feathers that demarcated his right wing from flesh. Before it had been more of a trickle, slow but steady. Chloe had thought that that was a horrifying sight. But this was _so much worse,_ because it was in no way a trickle. She had seen people with punctured arteries lose less blood in the same amount of time that she stood there, frozen.

"Take those towels and press them to his back," Sun commanded, leaving no room for argument. "Press _hard._ The less blood he loses right now, the better."

"What happened?" Chloe demanded as she moved to obey. The angle was awkward, but she leaned as much of her weight as she could onto Lucifer's back; she chanted _sorry_ under her breath as he tried to roll away from her, his strangled half-shout muffled by clenched teeth. Even with three towels wadded up in her hands, the blood welled up between her fingers within a matter of seconds. "What the hell happened?!"

"Pentapods aren't a thing," Sun replied. He rounded the autopsy table, peeling back one of Lucifer's eyelids to shine a penlight in his eye.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning he's got to be a hexapod. He's got another wing somewhere." Sun pressed his fingers to the pulse point in Lucifer's throat. "I asked him to bring it out. Didn't work." He frowned, and moved his hand to just in front of Lucifer’s ear, checking the pulse point there as well. "Okay, so it _is_ that fast. I hope you're not having a stroke."

"What?!" Dan and Chloe both cried.

"Relax, he's not. Probably. He's not human, right? Can't diagnose him using human symptoms." Sun paused for a fraction of a second. "Probably. I don't know. This shit isn't exactly covered in _The BMJ."_ Sun leaned down to eye level with the table, and snapped his fingers next to Lucifer’s ear; he flinched away from the noise. "Morningstar? Can you stop trying to _Apocalypto_ yourself for a sec and open your eyes for me?"

"What?" Lucifer slurred. His eyes cracked open, though they didn't quite manage to completely focus on Sun. For the moment, his writhing on the table slowed. "What? Why's-" He grunted, the tendons in his neck straining as he clenched his jaw so hard, Chloe swore she heard his teeth creaking. _"What?"_

"Morningstar, do you know where you are?" 

_"No,"_ Lucifer snapped, then almost immediately said, "Morgue." 

"Good. Who's all here with you?"

"I don't-" He bit off his words with a groan. He pulled so hard against Dan's restraining hold, he almost flipped the other man over the autopsy table. _"Hurts,"_ he hissed. 

"It's your other wing," Sun said. "I can help, but you have to bring it out."

Lucifer shook his head. _"Can't."_

"Yes, you can," Sun insisted. "You have to, otherwise I can’t do anything. Try."

Lucifer squinted at Sun, unfocused. After a moment, he rolled his left shoulder like he was trying to crack his back. Beneath her hands, Chloe felt unfamiliar muscles coil, something right below his shoulder blade shifting. He got halfway through the movement before his entire body froze, his limbs locking and his face contorting in pain. 

"It won't-" His eyes flew wide, his gaze wild. "Stop. Make it _stop."_

"Shit!" Dan yelped as Lucifer really _did_ flip him over the autopsy table; he bounced off of the edge of a counter, hit the floor, and didn't move again. Sun leapt to grab Lucifer's freed arm, but ended up sprawled at the other end of the room after he was shoved away, thrown like he weighed less than nothing.

"Lucifer, stop!" Chloe abandoned her post at his back to grab his arm and pin it to his side. She braced her hip against the lip of the table, realizing too late that she was most likely about to have her arms wrenched from their sockets as she followed Dan and Sun to the floor. With any luck, she would be able to catch herself without breaking anything.

Lucifer didn’t attempt to throw her.

Lucifer tried to tug his wrist free once, twice. And then he collapsed back against the autopsy table, his burst of frenzied energy gone, a violent shiver wracking his entire body. He twisted his head to press his forehead against the cool metal of the autopsy table, a groan rising from deep in his chest.

Sun stumbled back over to the table, blinking stars out or his eyes. His glasses sat off-kilter on his face, one of the arms bent out of shape, the lenses cracked through. "How'd you calm him so fast?" Chloe shrugged. "Well, keep doing it. He hits like a freight train. Espinoza, you dead over there?" 

"Yes," Dan groaned from somewhere over Chloe's shoulder. She didn't hear him try to get up.

Sun clicked his tongue. "Well, at least you had the courtesy to die in a morgue."

"I already made that joke."

Sun rubbed his hands together. "All right. Morningstar? Ready for round two? Or, three, I guess?" Lucifer shook his head. "Yes you are. Try again."

"Jus' fix th'other one," Lucifer muttered to the autopsy table, his voice thin and tinny as it echoed back up at them. "It's fine."

"Sure. That's why trying to manifest it almost knocked you out." Sun leaned over the table, and snatched up one of the soaked rags that Chloe had abandoned. He held it up, his eyebrows raising when it left a trail of drops across Lucifer's shoulder. "See this? If you were a human, losing this much blood _this quickly_ would have killed you. You came in here with symptoms of a Class Two hemorrhage, and now your symptoms are almost completely in line with a Class Three. Are you _trying_ to bleed to death? Because you will if I don't stop it soon."

Lucifer tilted his head to peer at Sun out of the corner of one eye. For a handful of seconds--too many, in Chloe's opinion--Lucifer didn't have an answer. Another full-body shiver ran down his spine. The hand pinned to his side curled into a shaky fist, his knuckles bleeding white.

"You may want to move, Detective," Lucifer said, his voice soft and strained. Chloe dropped her gaze to the arm she held, and the angry red wounds it had caused. She hesitated; Lucifer wasn't the only one drawing comfort from the contact. So long as she could feel the warmth of his skin, and the beat of his heart--as fast and erratic as it was--she could keep believing that Sun's comments about Lucifer's flagging health were just tasteless jokes. "Detective?"

"Right, sorry." She gave his arm a pat that she hoped didn't look as awkward as it felt, then moved to the head of the autopsy table. She offered a smile as Lucifer's eyes followed her relocation. "I'll be right here." 

"Lovely," he huffed, his eyes sliding closed again. He blew out a long, slow breath, and then fell still. If it wasn't for the rigid line of his spine, the tension in his muscles, and the tremors he visibly fought and failed to stop in his hands, Chloe would have thought that he had lapsed into a dazed trance again.

She was just about to call his name when his hand slammed down on the autopsy table, his fingers wrapping around the edge in a death grip that warped the metal. Lucifer flinched, jerking forward with a loud, terrifying _pop-crack._ He bared his teeth in a silent snarl.

For a single, horrifying second, his entire form flickered, flashing back to that red and scarred creature from the loft. Beside her, Chloe heard Sun swallow his startled gasp. When the Devil flickered and vanished again, an ashen-grey Lucifer replacing him, the temperature in the room skyrocketed, and the cabinet doors rattled on their hinges. The lights overhead sparked and flashed, but thankfully didn't break. He flinched again.

No. _Convulsed._   

Then, with an agonized scream and a sound like bones shattering, Lucifer's missing wing tore its way out of his back. 

The wing cracked three of the ceiling tiles above the autopsy table, and decorated five more with splatters of blood and broken feathers, before falling back to hang over the side of the autopsy table and spill onto the floor. Lucifer dropped his head back onto the table, his brow pinched with the last vestiges of pain, his breathing fast and uneven. He groaned, swallowing spasmodically.

Her pounding heart still trying to work its way up her throat, Chloe called, "Lucifer?" Because she knew that look on his face; Trixie had worn it every time she had caught the flu or one of the stomach bugs that made its rounds at school.

"Heads up!" Sun darted past, a red biohazard waste container tucked under his arm. Like a runner sliding into home plate, he skid to a halt and dropped the open container next to the autopsy table just in time for Lucifer to haul himself halfway off of it to cough up a mouthful or two of stomach bile.

Only after he got his breathing somewhat under control did Lucifer roll back onto the autopsy table, every limb shaking. _"Ugh."_ Again, he twisted to rest his forehead on the cool metal, sighing at the minuscule relief. _"Bloody hell."_  He drew in another shaky breath, and then he was out like a light, his entire body going limp.

"Huh." Sun flipped the lid of the biohazard container closed, dampening the acrid scent of bile before it could become overwhelming. "All right. Hexapod. Cool."

"Can you help him now?" Chloe asked. "Please?"

"Probably." Sun slid the biohazard container away from him, and knelt down by Lucifer's left wing. Almost immediately, the corners of his mouth pulled into a frown. "Uh oh."

The wing, if possible, looked even worse than the first. Hardly a single feather had escaped being dyed red, and those that had were bent, or snapped, or missing large chunks from the vanes. The fluorescent overhead lights glinted off of shards of glass that pierced through feather and flesh; as the wing shook with tremors, a few smaller shards slipped free, shining until they fell and shattered on the ground. The worst, though, was how the wing contorted unnaturally, bending too far forward at the halfway point between the first and second joint of the wing. At the apex of the bend, something jagged and off-white and half as thick as Chloe's wrist jutted up and away from the disheveled feathers. At first glance, Chloe had thought it _was_ a feather.

It wasn't.

Sun whistled. "Well, at least we know where all the blood's coming from." 

Over at the other end of the lab, Dan hauled himself back to his feet. He leaned most of his weight on the counter, rubbing at the bruise that was rapidly forming on the side of his head. "Okay, _now_ I want to go home." He limped closer to the autopsy table, lifting himself up on his toes to peer over it. He blanched. "Is that a _bone?"_ he asked, his voice rising an octave. He cleared his throat. "Uh, that looks bad."

Sun hummed in agreement. "Yep." He leaned back on his heels. "So, is now a bad time to mention I know _nothing_ about ornithology?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically I didn't take a month to update this. I took, like, _seven_ months. I'm what the children call a "hot mess", hold the "hot", extra "mess". I hope this chapter makes it up to you all! Next up is Chloe finding out _why_ Lucifer looks like he lost a fight with a blender  >:)
> 
> HUGE shout-out to **NotOneLine** for messaging me on Twitter every once in a while to remind me to work on this fic! Without them, this chapter probably (definitely) would have taken a lot longer. Thanks fam :)
> 
> I was going to make a "Happy Singles Awareness Day!!" joke, but apparently that's an actual holiday, like, tomorrow, and not just a Valentine's meme? So just Happy Day, I guess? Yeah.


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